Young Dallas business owners take handmade and vintage clothing on the road

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Jeff Lautenberger/The Dallas Morning News

Osiris Cadena, center, shops inside the Vintage Mobile at the Deep Ellum Outdoor Market on July 21, 2012. The bus, which can only only hold a handful of customers at a time because of space, is even equipped with a small changing room in the back.

Young artists and vendors aim to increase Dallas’ cool factor with creative clothing — and they’re taking their products on the road.

A few Dallas companies modified trailers and other vehicles to create mobile stores, like food trucks, but for clothes. Customers climb aboard to find handmade and one-of-a-kind items.

The hip shops roll into outdoor events and command department store prices for their goods, with mobile-trailer-size start-up and operating costs. The low overhead and easy mobility leave the young entrepreneurs unfazed by an economy that has shuttered many small businesses.

Carting around art

Dylan Dowdy and his wife, Pamela Dowdy, are in love — with each other and with the art that lines the shelves of their converted trailer, the Dowdy Studio Wagon.

The couple started sharing tables at craft fairs in 2008 to sell Dylan’s T-shirts and Pamela’s art and jewelry.

A few months after Dylan, 29, lost his job managing a Starbucks and the couple married in 2010, the couple began their mobile trailer business in March 2011. In the first year, Dylan has doubled his previous income.

“We’re not salesmen, we’re just artists,” Dylan said.

Pamela, 29, still holds a full-time job as a graphic designer for fashion accessory company Fossil. The couple takes the wagon out most weekends and some weekdays to sell their wares. They also have a shop on Etsy.com, a site for handcrafted goods.

They have 19 shirt designs in their arsenal, including a cat dressed as a cowboy and the slogan “drink local.”

The couple hired a Los Angeles designer to make the shirts. Then Dylan screen-prints his images on the shirts at a studio in East Dallas. Pamela makes wooden jewelry, clocks and other art pieces.

Andy Nguyen, 30, bought three shirts and a messenger bag when he visited the wagon at the Bishop Arts District Bastille Day celebration.

“I can go to American Apparel and buy something everyone can buy, or I can support local artists,” Nguyen said.

Dylan processed a credit card transaction with a Square add-on to his iPhone, while Pamela folded a shirt for a customer. They admit Dowdy Studio isn’t a typical Dallas small business.

“When we first started this, everyone said we should move to Austin, but we want to make this place cool,” Pamela said.

Dylan and Pamela make small talk with the people who climb onto the wagon — moms with kids, 20-somethings and teenagers.

“Our ideal customer is everyone,” Dylan said.

New-age vintage

Jeremy Turner’s shamrock green school bus stands out at the Deep Ellum Outdoor Market, where the 26-year-old sets up shop most months. A look through the windows reveals rows of vintage clothes, shoes and knickknacks.

He and wife Kelsey Turner, 28, opened the Vintagemobile last July. They pick each item from eBay, thrift stores and estate sales. A Rod Stewart T-shirt, acid-wash Levi jeans and a vinyl copy of “Oh No, It’s Devo” stand out.

The air-conditioned bus even has a dressing room with a Star Wars curtain.

“Shopping on the bus, it’s not just shopping,” Jeremy says of his customers. “You’re supporting the smallest of the small businesses in Dallas.”

On an average night, the Turners sell about 20 items.

Weather permitting, they go out three to four times a week. It took the business four to six months to start making a profit after the Turners’ initial investment in the bus, paint job and merchandise. Markets in Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum have been great for business, and they’ve driven the bus to college campuses.

The Turners first got the idea to open a vintage shop while on their honeymoon in San Francisco in 2010. Last year, Jeremy sold his Honda Civic and bought the bus from a church in Oklahoma for $1,500. A sign that reads “Check for sleeping children” remains taped to the front of the bus above the driver’s seat.

Unlike food vending, there is no clear permitting system for mobile clothing stores. Jeremy Turner and Pamela Dowdy both said they get permission to sell at events and businesses on a case-by-case basis.

It’s not a full-time job for Jeremy, who also works with kids with autism. He doesn’t expect to make a career of the business, but he says he enjoys the creative outlet of curating items for the Vintagemobile and interacting with customers.

“I’m open to selling it eventually, to pass it along to someone else who is more interested in working with fashion full time,” he said.

Shirts to go

The five University of North Texas graduates who run Pan Ector Industries don’t have a mobile shop yet, but they have a mobile screen-printing press and plans to buy a trailer.

The company prints a few hundred shirts a week for bars and other businesses around Denton, as well as for events. They take their show on the road once or twice a month, screen-printing shirts with the mobile press.

Pan Ector started producing shirts in 2009. It only took the company a few months to break even, and last year the business made about $75,000 in revenue.

Clients include the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff, the organization I[Heart]Denton and the music festival 35 Denton. The partners create the designs for most of their clients, and they also sell shirts with their own branded designs.

“It’s neat to have them be an interactive element at the festival and around the city itself,” said Kyle LaValley, the creative director for 35 Denton.

Live printing helps the event organizers and business owners avoid paying for leftover shirts, said partner Michael Little, who graduated with a printmaking degree in 2009.

And live printing gives the company a chance to connect with potential bulk-order customers, said Nick Webber, a 2010 graduate.

“Everyone needs design work of some kind — they just may not know it right then,” Webber said. “We make a lot of connections.”

This fall, the company will move out of its converted garage studio and into a permanent space near the Denton Square. The owners plan to buy a trailer to make road trips easier.

Webber said the owners hope to quit their day jobs to work for Pan Ector full time, putting their art degrees to use.

“Shirts aren’t high design, but we get satisfaction from seeing a good product leave our hands,” Little said.

That satisfaction grows when the guys help a customer choose a shirt and color, print it on the spot and pass it right into the hands of its new owner.

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